Eyes On Fire
by romanceisboring
Summary: AU. A quest for revenge becomes an adventure, a quest for redemption leads to new friends.
1. Chapter 1

**[I do not own Zoids or anything of the likes. I own my own characters and that's about it. ]**

[Prologue]

Aleks hadn't seen snow since she was a child. The memory of snow that she recollected most was the when trains came in. The ground stirred under them. Ice long formed and frozen over the rails shattered under the weight of their cargo: soldiers and Zoids.

The trains were primitive machinery, out of service since before she was born. They were adapted in recent years for military use. The girl watched them wide-eyed from her front porch as the doors to the cars hissed and cracked open. The swarm of soldiers that filed out seemed never ending.

They built small camps on the outskirts of the town. During the night, Aleks could see the flickering of their fires burning brightly and a number of men huddled tightly around the flames to keep warm as snow drifted downwards and blanketed the small town.

The military occupation of the town confused the town members as it was a time of peace. Nonetheless, the town folk enjoyed having a few extra hands to help out with things. The Zoids they brought, like the Shield Ligers and Heldigunners, came in handy for small construction jobs. When the town dug a new irrigation canal for the coffee bean fields, four Dibison pulled the plow to work the land.

Aleks herself just liked watching the Zoids work. Her parents, however, were coffee bean farmers and told her not to get her hopes up: she would inherit the family business and have no time for the luxuries of being a pilot. Being a coffee purveyor excited Aleks as much as watching a snail move across the ground and disobeyed her parents rule of staying away from the Zoids.

The young girl would wander around the soldiers camps after school, spending hours making tracks in the snow beneath the Zoids as she explored each of them from the ground.

"One day," she whispered, her emerald eyes illuminated in the sun as they rested on the sleek cockpit of a Lightning Saix, "I'm going to have my own Zoid." She promised herself, no matter what her parents expected her do.

An announcement came on the news late in the evening of Aleks' seventeenth birthday. The girl and her parents had settled in to the living room to watch a program they regularly viewed and the news broadcast had taken it's time slot.

The Emperor of the country appeared standing in front of a podium, the country's bright green flag displayed as the background behind him. He was a stout man with a full gray beard, the hair on his head a slight shade of gray lighter. His face bore many lines, caused by the years of stress being a political official would mark one with. He cleared his throat, a look of deep unease glimmering on his eyes and only made more apparent my the quiver in his lip.

"Citizens of Aneca," he was addressing the whole nation. Aleks saw her father sit forward in his seat, his absolute attention now focused on the words the Emperor was about to deliver. It had to be serious, the girl thought. "At 1800 hours, the country of Ursas declared war on us. Their supply of Zoid Magnite has been dwindling for many years now, and as of today, their mines have run dry. And they now want our supply." The Emperor paused, taking a deep sigh. "This is why for the past eleven years, many towns close to the border of Ursas have been occupied by the military." Aleks' mind clicked. The military had been positioned in her town because they were only a few hundred miles from the border of Ursas- the capital not much further. Growing frightened, the girl looked to her parents for reassurance, but they were glued to the television, looks of anxiety furrowing their brows together. "We will do everything in our power to protect each and every citizen of Aneca. Ursas shall not pre-" The television screen flickered from the image of the Emperor to static. Aleks' heart froze in her throat as she sunk her her chair.

She did not know much about Zoid Magnite or how large Aneca's supply was. All she did know is that it was what gave life to new Zoids.

The girls father stood quickly, going to the kitchen. She could hear him pull open a drawer and began rummaging through it. Her questioning eyes moved to her mother. The woman gave the girl a weak smile before she rose as well and moved to the arm of the chair next to Aleks. Her mother touched her shoulder gently.

"Sweetheart, there is something your father and I never told you. Your father-" her mother began speaking softly, her voice fading as she continued as if she didn't know how to explain. "Your father and I met while he was in the military. I was young- just nineteen. We fell in love. And then you were born." her mother need not explain the details. Aleks was well aware of them. "But while he was in the military, he was a Zoid pilot." her eyes held a smile that her lips were not.

"And a damn good one at that." her father's voice rang from the kitchen as the rummaging noises stopped. He returned to the sitting room, a silver key in his hand. He crossed the room and took Aleks' hand in his own and placed the key in her palm. It was cold and slightly rusted. Already confused by the message they'd just heard on the television, her parents behavior unnerved her even more.

"What's- what's going on?" The girl finally spoke, her voice seeming to have disappeared during the whole situation. Her father's eyes softened, a feat Aleks did not see very often. He was a stern man who put work before everything else except his family. His brown hair had started to turn ashen when Aleks turned thirteen, the hair on his mustache following shortly thereafter. But rarely did she ever see his hazel eyes look so unsure in her life. It probably frightened her most of all.

"This key will unlock a garage behind the Rumstead Coffee Mill. Go and retrieve what is in it." Her father nodded. The girl looked from the key to him.

"How will I know what to get?" She was unsure what she was to get. A tool, a gun, a supply of food?

"There is but one thing in that garage and I am giving it to you now, Aleks. Go and get it. But be swift and be careful." His tone was instructional, just a tinge of pride now sparkling behind the unease in his eyes. The girl was so befuddled, but she obeyed her father's order.

She tossed her yellow bomber jacket on and left the house, keeping her head down and her hands stuffed deep in to her pockets. Aleks' parents had never acted this strangely before. She wondered what could have set them off.

"Could it have been the Emperor's speech?" she mused quietly to herself, walking briskly to her destination across town. The girl sighed. Whatever was in the garage possibly held a clue to their peculiar behavior.

The walk to Rumstead's took Aleks a good twenty minutes.

She rubbed her eyes as she stopped momentarily in front of the establishment. She'd been to the place numerous times when helping her father bring their harvested coffee beans in to be ground and packaged. But she'd never thought to look behind the building where this garage was. And when Aleks rounded Rumstead's, she was astonished she'd missed something of that sheer size.

The garage was huge. It was older, weathered a rusted but still sturdy. The moon cast a soft glow across its metal roof. Aleks slowly approached the structure, withdrawing the key from her pocket as she did. The doors looked heavy. An even heavier looking chain and padlocked snaked around the handles to the doors. She grumbled quietly to herself, raising her hand with the key to the lock and inserting it in to the keyway and twisting it. She had to twist it forcefully a few times as the lock was even more rusty than the key or building from years of neglect. It was almost if the lock had not been used since it was initially put on the door.

As it finally clicked open, she pulled it from the chain and dropped it to the ground, followed by the unnecessarily thick chain.

"Who are they trying to keep out of here?" Aleks exasperatedly sighed, wrapping her hands around the door handles. She braced herself and then pushed forward with her entire strength. At first, the door didn't budge. Her footing began slipping in the soft earth. She sucked in a deep breath of air and threw her whole being against the door and it creaked open, slowly but surely.

Aleks paused, taking a moment to collect herself and her breath before turning to see what lie in the garage that was so pertinent that she couldn't wait until tomorrow to collect.

A single sliver of pale moonlight filtered in the door and reflected against the red armor of a Command Wolf. Aleks would have gasped loudly enough for a person passing by all the way out in front of Rumstead's to hear, but at the same second, a edifice across from where she stood exploded.

The war had began.


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn't the nicest day out, yet the tables outside on the patio of a small street cafe were filled. Sweet smells of fresh breads baking inside wafted from the open windows, tinged with the robust scent of ground coffee.

A single waiter danced between the tables elegantly, carrying a round tray high above his head loaded with cups of various sizes and small plates of tapas and baked goods. He made stops at each table, mostly occupied by young couples, delivering their orders of croissants and hot teas as they leaned in close to make their conversations seem intimate. The men would make statements that turned the cheeks of their women companions flush red. They would then hide behind their cups of tea as they collected themselves.

The table nearest to the street, however, had only one occupant. The waiter placed a single cup of espresso before the customer before he delicately spun on his heels, returning to the kitchen to load up his tray with the next round of beverages and food.

The single diner's eyes flickered from the nearest table to her to her dark espresso. Steam seductively snaked its way up from the cup into the air above, inviting her to take a sip of its caffeinated goodness.

The sun did not shine overhead. Instead, it was a rather cloudy, chilly day. Boring by most's standards. Many of the couples were probably headed to a movie after their coffees, then would seclude themselves to a night in, just basking in the others company.

Aleks stared deep into the dark pool that was espresso in her cup, lost in the thoughts of what it was like to spend an evening like that. She never had time to spend a night in, let alone in the company of the opposite sex. She was always preoccupied with work.

Something slapped down on to the opposite side of her table, rippling the calm surface of the espresso she'd be so longingly staring in to. Her green eyes snapped upwards, demanding an apology for whatever had caused the disturbance.

A newspaper lay on the table across from her, its deliverer already hastily walking down to sidewalk away from the table as if to avoid being seen, although the smack the paper made when coming in contact with the table was relatively too audible to ignore. Aleks knew who the paper was from and what it was for, she just wished the man who'd given it to her had been just a bit more tactful about his drop off.

Of course, the closest tables to Aleks' had witnessed the hasty delivery and suspiciously craned their necks in an effort to see what it was, but Aleks didn't even acknowledge the paper. She just let it set there as she finally snaked her fingers around the espresso glass and raised it to her lips. It was strong and mildly sweet; just how she liked it. Artisan coffees were always excellent.

As for the paper, she gave it quick glances every now and then. The man who presented it had done so on behalf of the Anecan government. It was their way of delivering information for her latest job without having to arrange a meeting between either parties.

At the age of twenty-two, Aleks had made quite the reputation for herself as a mercenary for hire. She took numerous jobs from escort duty to bounty collecting, normally hired by lower city officials or private employers. She worked quickly and efficiently, making her rather sought after from anything to non-important to high-priority jobs.

But when the Anecan government had hired her for surveillance duty, she took the job with a sense of suspicion. The government had the whole Anecan military at their disposal for jobs like this: jobs that they were much more qualified for, jobs that they had much better equipment for. Instead, they contracted a free-lance mercenary to do so. The entire situation perturbed her, but if the government was reaching out to her it meant they either didn't trust the skills of their own troops or it was something they wanted to keep secret.

Regardless of the circumstances, they were offering to pay her handsomely, so she accepted the job with little thought and waited for further information. Which had finally arrived in the form of a newspaper.

Aleks tucked a few bills under the now empty espresso cup and collected the paper, tucking it under her arm and briskly walking in the direction of her Zoid. She needed to get to the cockpit and analyze the information she'd just received in privacy.

Aleks' ever faithful Zoid stood alone on the outskirts of town. It may have been an older model Command Wolf, but its red armor glowed when the light of Zi's dual moons hit it and Aleks would have it no other way. It had started as a stock Command Wolf, but Aleks had seen it necessary to upgrade it over the years. The Zoid had seen numerous weapon out fittings, but currently sported a CP-04 Attack Unit. A gift from her parents, she'd been inseparable with it since the night she'd received it. It was the last memory of her family that she had to cling to.

The Command Wolf lowered its head at her approach, the canopy hissing and opening fully for her to enter. She didn't wait for the canopy to fully closed before she started flipping through the pages of the newspaper.

Numerous Polaroid pictures slipped from their tucked positions inside the paper, along with an envelope sealed with a wax crest. Aleks set the envelope aside for the moment, flipping quickly through the pictures, scanning each one thoroughly before slipping it to the back of the stack.

They were satellite images. Images that showed a lone building in the middle of a desert. As the pictures proceeded, Gustavs could be seen moving in from different directions with covered trailers to loading docks located at the south of the building.

"Hmm." Aleks mused loudly, flipping through the set twice over before she tossed the group of photographs to the side and picked back up the envelope. Her name was scrawled across the front, the official Anecan crest pressed in to the wax sealing the back of the envelope. "Fancy, eh Fenrir?" Aleks smirked, asking the Command Wolf about the official air the envelope held with the crest. The Zoid growled softly in response to her question.

She peeled the seal off and reached into the envelope, pulling its contents out. As she did, a folded piece of paper floated in to her lap. She collected it up and opened it. It was half of her payment; a check made out to her name for ten-thousand dollars. The girl whistled, tucking it under the console of her Command Wolf for safe keeping.

She picked up the other piece of paper, folded in thirds, and opened it.

"Aleks Huttser," she read the paper aloud. "We have contracted you to investigate and survey the suspicious deliveries to this facility in Ursan territory. Do not engage Ursan forces. Report back with any unusual sightings or outgoing shipments. Incoming deliveries are to be left alone." The letter was not signed and instead ended with the coordinates of the facility she was to survey.

The girls brows furrowed together. There wasn't much information on what she was to even look for. She didn't know what "suspicious deliveries" even consisted of. She was being sent in blind and she didn't appreciate it, but the check she'd just tucked away meant she had to comply no matter how peeved she was.

The cockpit hummed to life, the optics flickering on and all systems coming on line. Aleks seized the controls in her hands and turned the Command Wolf to the South. The sun was close to setting, the sky giving way to a deep orange and light pinks and purples. She was close to two hours away from her destination according to the GPS system she had punched the coordinates in to. The girl sighed just slightly before breaking her Zoid in to a run.

As Aleks crossed the Ursan border, the trees became denser and grew closer together. Ursas was infamous for it's thick forests. It made her task of stealthily approaching her destination easier, but it made her uneasy about combat. She knew in the letter the government had sent her about her contract duties stated she was not to engage any Ursan forces, but should she come under attack she wasn't about to just sit there and not counter. The Command Wolf was agile enough to bound between the trees, but the girl just didn't like to take any chances.

She moved quickly and quietly, the Command Wolf making sure not to disturb any unnecessary foliage. She could just see how the trees just began to thin out ahead, a great, ugly stone edifice erupting from the earth beyond the treeline.

"Whoa, that's got to be it." She spoke aloud, dropping her speed rapidly. The Command Wolf dropped from a run to a trot to a slow, stalking walk as she cautiously made her way towards the threshold of the forest; she wasn't exiting the coverage from the trees just yet. The Zoid turned parallel with the building, Aleks assessing the outside for surveillance equipment.

Both corners of the building she could see mounted bullet infra-red cameras. While they could spot anything approaching the building thanks to their IR capabilities, they could only see 200 feet in front of them. These cameras would deter your back-yard thief, but Aleks had the experience to work their blind spots to her advantage.

She'd also been watching for a patrol Zoid working the perimeters of the building, which she did not see. Another peg in the peculiarity of this assignment. The building had a little security: an inexperienced private in the military could do what she was doing. Why would the government spend the extra money to hire her when they could assign a few grunts to do so? Any why, if this building was a suspected high-performance weapons facility, was security lacking? Things were starting to add up and they were making less and less sense to Aleks.

There was a sudden, small blip on her radar, almost a kilometer to her West.

"Maybe that's security." The Command Wolf lowered its body to the ground, waiting for Aleks to decide what actions to take. She continued to watched its movements. It was approaching at a medium pace but gradually slowed, no doubt to move more efficiently through the trees. She was so focused on it; trying to figure out what it could be, did it know she was there, what were it's motives. The blip suddenly stopped, remaining still. Aleks blinked, watching it hold its position for many minutes.

A suddenly explosion rocked the Command Wolf, throwing her against her harness.

"What the- it was a diversion!" The Command Wolf snapped back up to catch the fluttering form of a Guysack driving deeper into the woods. The Wolf snarled and gave pursuit, 250mm beam cannon rounds from the Command Wolf smashing against trees but never found purchase on the Guysack. It was quick, undoubtedly piloted by someone who was experienced in it and the surrounding forest. The disadvantage she had didn't stop Aleks, however.

The scorpion Zoid took a quick left. Aleks tried to make just as sharp a turn, clipping a tree in the process, which gave her the necessary direction shift to keep after the Guysack, which Aleks was slowly gaining ground on.

The scorpion turned quickly, raising its tail and firing rapid shots from its 30mm tail mounted beam cannon. Numerous shots scored hits along the front of Aleks' Command Wolf, but this did not deter her charge. The Command Wolf lept up high, preparing the dive down on the Guysack when it side-stepped. This resulted in Aleks only being able to grab hold of one of the Guysack's legs, but she'd take what she could get.

The Wolf clamped its jaws down, restraining the Guysack as it tried to flee. It defensively flailed its tail around, smashing it against the Wolf's head numerous times before Aleks fired two point blank rounds into the base of the tail, blowing it free of the scorpions body. This didn't please it, as it rounded back around and snatched her front shoulders up in its pinchers.

"Oh, no you don't," Aleks growled, putting the Command Wolf's front paws of the Guysack's face and using it as leverage to push off and wrench the leg in it's mouth free of its body. It screamed, using the hold it had on the Wolf's shoulders to shove itself away in an attempt to flee and keep its remaining limbs. Aleks, though, had other plans for it.

It was awkwardly running away now from it's lack of a limb, but still diving in and out of trees for cover. Aleks sprinted after it, jumping on to its back as she caught up. Unable to support this weight, the Guysack crashed into the ground, grinding into the earth along the way. She brought the Wolf's front paw up high and smashed it into the cockpit glass of the scorpion. It's movements sputtered as it slowly slipped into defeat.

Triumphing over its victim, the Command Wolf tossed back it head and let out a quick howl. Aleks looked up from the shattered Guysack canopy to her radar to check if the commotion they'd caused had alerted any other forces. A cold sweat drenched the girls forehead when she realized she only meters away from the blip that had distracted her earlier. It was dangerously close and was now approaching. She quickly deployed her smoke dischargers, bounding a few feet away and training her beam cannons in the direction of the blip and hunkering down for round two.

Very slowly, a Leomaster tread cautiously through the opening in the trees, it's own beam cannons deployed. It stopped, lingering on the downed Guysack before moving forward through Aleks' smoke screen.

She bit her lip, knowing she couldn't hide forever in the smoke as it was already starting to dissipate, but as far as she was aware, Leomasters did not possess IR sensors and she was safe until the smoke cleared. By then, she would be ready to leap on the unsuspecting Liger.

But somehow, the Leomaster had already caught wind of her location, moving in her direction and crouching lower as it approached. She still remained inert, not giving away her position by moving. Aleks' cross hairs fell over the front shoulder of the Liger and the girl squeezed the trigger. But in utter amazement, the rounds smashed into the Leomaster's shield. The girls eyes widened.

"How did he get his shield up that quick?" she whispered, jerking the controls to bound away. The Leomaster quickly gave chase, peppering the rear of the Command Wolf with shots from its shock cannons. She weaved with all the ability she had to avoid being hit with its beam cannons. Those would hurt.

An incoming transmission popped up on her console.

"Aleks Huttser, hold your fire." a man she'd never before seen commanded her.

"Oh, hell, no. I'm being pursued!" she shouted. How did he know she was even firing? Who was this man?

"No you're not. Look." he replied with a certain tone. Aleks' eyes angrily snapped from the screen he was on to her radar. The Leomaster had indeed started falling behind, slowly coming to a stop. The Command Wolf slid to a halt.

"Who are you and who the hell is chasing me?" The girl demanded. She was growing irritated with the number of surprises this job was bringing.

"I am Lieutenant Roydon of the Anecan military. I am the one who contacted you for this job." he paused, patting down his bushy mustache. Aleks' eyes rolled.

"Okay, that's nice, Lieutenant. Mind telling me who you've got chasing me?" Aleks wasn't holding back on the sarcasm. She didn't appreciate being attacked when she was only hired for surveillance duty.

"That was the other mercenary hired for this job, Luca Bechard." Aleks' nose immediately scrunched in disgust.

"I don't work with others and you people know that." she barked, the Command Wolf audibly growling to join in her distaste for partners. The Lieutenant laughed heartily.

"Yes, Miss Huttser. We know that. Unfortunately, we saw it necessary to employ two people for this task and if you want to be paid, you will cooperate and work with Mr. Bechard to accomplish this job. You have each received your initial payment of ten-thousand dollars and will receive four more checks of the same amount through each step of this job. No ifs, ands, or buts. We will contact you with the information on the next step of your mission. For now, you are to continued to collect information on this facility." The window closed. Aleks sighed, shutting her eyes and rubbing her temples.

She hated working with partners. They normally just got in her way. She was a quiet, reserved person. And when she had to spend any amount of time with another person, they started asking her questions, prying in to why she'd kept to herself so much.

"Well, you're Aleks Huttser. I thought you'd be a guy." A new window popped up on her console. The Leomaster slowly approached the side of the Command Wolf. Aleks' jaw clenched slightly and unclenched at this statement.

"How chauvinistic of you. Just because I'm a mercenary, you assume I'm a man." she replied, looking into the eyes of her new partner. His brows furrowed.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. I'm Luca." he frowned. Aleks took in a deep breath. She wasn't pleased with her current situation, but if she wanted to get paid, and she did, she would have to make best of the situation.

"Right. Just try to keep up with me in that thing, yes?" Aleks directed the Command Wolf back towards the location of their scouting job and took off, not caring if Luca really kept up with her or not. She closed the communication link with the Leomaster. "Man, Fenrir. We get ourselves in some tricky situations, huh?" she asked her Zoid. The Command Wolf tossed its head back and yipped in response, which returned a smile back to her lips.


End file.
